1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information transmission apparatus for and an information transmission method of transmitting information that can change with time, such as image information or voice information.
2. Description of Related Art
A time slot generating apparatus that can specify conditions of an issue or stop of a data transmission request has been put forth, as a technology associated with prior art information transmission apparatus and information transmission methods, in order to check the functionality and operation of a system. When original data are divided into a plurality of parts and they are stored in a plurality of storage units, respectively, the time slot generating apparatus generates time slots as time units and then transmits parallel data from the plurality of storage units by performing timing control based on those time slots. As a result, the time slot generating apparatus can transmit the original data at a data transmission rate that exceeds a data transmission rate that each storage unit can provide. The time slot generating apparatus is provided with a register used for operation checking, which specifies time slots in which parallel data transmission is carried out, and carries out transmission of parallel data from the plurality of storage units only in the time slots specified by the register used for operation checking, thereby being able to check the functionality and operation of a system (refer to Japanese patent application publication (TOKKAIHEI) No. 10-326155 (first page and FIG. 1)).
A problem with prior art information transmission apparatus and information transmission methods is however that though only one connection line is required when only one party at the other end of connection receives transmitted information, when a plurality of parties at the other ends of connection receive transmitted information, a plurality of connection lines are required and the number of connection lines increases with an increase in the number of parties at the other ends of connection. Another problem is that when transmitting the same transmission information to a plurality of parties at the other ends of connection, it is necessary to transmit the same transmission information to each of the plurality of parties at the other ends of connection several times.